Volumetric Visualization of Spinal Cord Using Optical Coherence Tomography and Clearing Technique

Abstract

Spinal cord (SC) is central nervous system (CNS) with brain which is complete nerve cylinder starting from base of brain and path through the vertebral canal. Although SC is important biological component to understand CNS, there is lack of method to observe its structure and functionality. In particular, identification the border between white and gray matters in SC is clinically meaningful, because it is closely relevant to SC injury. Here, we introduce the new technique to provide volumetric visualization of spinal cord based on optical coherence tomography (OCT) and clearing technique.